Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Tula (2.)

TULA, capital of the above government, is situated on the Upa, 120 miles by rail to the south of Moscow. Other railway lines connect it with Ryazan and Orel. It is built in the broad but low, marshy, and unhealthy valley of the Upa and is divided into three parts, the Posad on the left bank, the Zaryetskaya or Oruzheinaya on the right bank, and Tchulkova between the Upa and the Tulitsa. It is an old town of Old Russia, but its growth began only towards the end of the 18th century after the manufacture of arms had commenced, and now (1887) its population has reached 65,100 (63,500 in 1882). They are employed chiefly either at the imperial gun factory or at numerous private factories (about 130, with 4350 men) and small workshops. The main branch of the industry is the making of rifles (from 20,000 to 30,000 annually). Next in importance comes the manufacture of samovars (tea-urns), in which more than 5000 persons are engaged. All sorts of cutlery and ironmongery are manufactured in the small workshops of Tula, which have a high repute in Russia. No fewer than 240,000 harmoniums are turned out annually; nearly 150,000 cwts. of steel, iron, and brass are imported every year for this industry alone.

The town of Tula is first mentioned in 1147; but its former site seems to have been higher up the Tulitsa. Its wooden fort was replaced in 1514-1521 by a stone "kreml," which still exists. Boris Godunoff founded a gun factory at Tula in 1595, and in 1632 a Dutchman, Winius, established an iron foundry. Michael Alexis and Peter I., especially the last-named, took great interest in the gun factories, and large establishments were built in 1705 and 1714, which soon turned out 15,000 rifles in a year. Catherine II. and Paul I. further improved the manufactures, which during the wars with France supplied more than half a million rifles.